Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 2 (of 2). Bell Henry Glassford
were entertained, “had been kept from her Majesty’s ears;” and, as she requested it, he now named them himself, putting the Earl of Bothwell first, and several other inferior persons after him. He did not undertake to be their accuser, confessing that he had no evidence of their guilt; but he said he greatly suspected Bothwell, and hoped “her Majesty, now knowing their names, and being a party, as well and more than he was, although he was the father, would take order in the matter according to the weight of the cause.” Mary, who had by this time returned to Edinburgh, wrote to Lennox, the very day after the receipt of his letter, that she had summoned her nobility to come to Edinburgh the first week of April; and that, as soon as they came, the persons named in his letter should “abide and underlie such trial, as by the laws of the realm was usual.” – “They being found culpable,” Mary added, “in any way of that crime and odious fact, named in the placards, and whereof you suspect them, we shall even, according to our former letter, see the condign punishment as vigorously and extremely executed as the weight of that fact deserves; for, indeed, as you write, we esteem ourself a party if we were resolute of the authors.” She further entreated Lennox to come to Edinburgh, that he might be present at the trial, and lend his assistance to it. “You shall there have experience,” she concluded, “of our earnest will and effectuous mind to have an end in this matter, and the authors of so unworthy a deed really punished.”67
The Queen, having waited anxiously till something should occur which might lead to the detection of the murderers, hoped that a clue to the mystery was now about to be discovered. It was a bold and perhaps almost too strong a measure, to arraign a nobleman so powerful, and apparently so respected as Bothwell, of so serious a crime, upon such vague suspicion; but if Mary in this instance exceeded the due limits of her constituted authority, it was an error which leant to virtue’s side, and the feelings of an insulted Queen and afflicted wife must plead her excuse. Her Privy Council, which she summoned immediately upon the receipt of Lennox’s last letter, and before whom she laid it, passed an act directing the trial of the Earl of Bothwell, and the other suspected persons named by Lennox. The trial was fixed to take place on the 12th day of April 1567; letters were directed to the Earl of Lennox to inform him of it, and proclamations were made in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumbarton, and other places, calling upon all who would accuse Bothwell, or his accomplices, to appear in court on the day appointed.68 The Council, however, would not authorize the imprisonment of the suspected persons, seeing that it was only anonymous placards which had excited that suspicion.
As soon as the Earl of Lennox got intimation of the intended trial, he set out for Edinburgh from his estate in Dumbartonshire. Not choosing to proceed thither direct, in consequence of the enmity which he knew Bothwell must bear to him, he went to Stirling, where it was understood he was engaged in collecting all the evidence in his power. Nor can Bothwell be supposed to have felt very easy, under the prospect of his approaching trial. He counted, however, on the good offices of his friends among the nobility; and having removed all who might have been witnesses against him, and brought into Edinburgh a numerous body of retainers, he resolved to brazen out the accusation with his usual audacity. He even affected to complain that he had not been treated with sufficient fairness; that a paper affixed privately to the door of the Tolbooth had been made the means of involving him in serious trouble; and that, instead of the usual term of forty days, only fifteen had been allowed him to prepare for his defence.69 He assumed the air, therefore, of an injured and innocent man; and he was well borne out in this character by the countenance he received from most of the Lords then at court. We learn from Killigrew, that twenty days after Bothwell had been placarded, he dined with him at the Earl of Murray’s, who had by this time returned from Fife, in company with Huntly, Argyle, and Lethington.70
The day of trial now drew near; but, to her astonishment, Mary received a letter only twenty-four hours before it was to take place, from the Earl of Lennox, who did not exactly see how he was to carry through his accusation, and therefore wished that the case should be postponed. The letter was dated from Stirling, and mentioned two causes which he said would prevent him from coming to Edinburgh; one was sickness, and the other the short time which had been allowed him to prepare for making good his charge. He asked, therefore, that the Queen would imprison the suspected persons, and would delay the trial till he had collected his friends and his proofs.71 This request disappointed Mary exceedingly. She had hurried on the trial as much to gratify Lennox as herself; but she now saw that, in asking for it at all, he had been guided more by the feeling of the moment, than by any rational conviction of its propriety. To postpone it without the consent of the accused, who had by this time made the necessary preparations for their defence, was of course out of the question; and, if the time originally mentioned was too short, why did Lennox not write to that effect, as soon as he received intimation of the day appointed? If she put off the trial now, for any thing she knew it might never come on at all. Her enemies, however, were determined, whatever she did, to discover some cause of complaint; – if she urged it on, they would accuse her of precipitancy; if she postponed it, they would charge her with indifference. Elizabeth, in particular, under the pretence of a mighty anxiety that Mary should do what was most honourable and requisite, insolently suggested that suspicion might attach to herself, unless she complied with the request made by Lennox. “For the love of God, Madam,” she hypocritically and insidiously wrote to Mary, “conduct yourself with such sincerity and prudence, in a case which touches you so nearly, that all the world may have reason to pronounce you innocent of a crime so enormous, which, unless they did, you would deserve to be blotted out from the rank of Princesses, and to become odious even to the vulgar, rather than see which, I would wish you an honourable sepulchre.”72 Just as if any one did suspect Mary, or as if any monarch in Christendom would have dared to hint the possibility of her being an adulterous murderess, except her jealous rival Elizabeth, pining in the chagrined malevolence of antiquated virginity. The real motives which dictated this epistle became the more apparent, when we learn that it was not written till the 8th of April, and could not at the very soonest reach Edinburgh till the morning of the very day on which the trial was to take place, and probably not till after it was over. The truth is, the very moment she heard of Darnley’s death, Elizabeth had eagerly considered in her own mind the possibility of involving “her good sister” in the guilt attached to those who had murdered him, and was now the very first who openly attempted to lead the thoughts of the Scottish Queen’s subjects into that channel; – she was the very first who commenced laying the train which produced in the end so fatal a catastrophe.
On Saturday, the 12th of April 1567, a Justiciary Court was held in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, for the trial of the Earl of Bothwell. The Lord High Justice the Earl of Argyle presided, attended by four assessors, or legal advisers, two of whom, Mr James MacGill and Mr Henry Balnaves, were Senators of the College of Justice; the third was Robert Pitcairn, Commendator of Dumfermlin, and the fourth was Lord Lindsay. The usual preliminary formalities having been gone through, the indictment was read, in which Bothwell was accused of being “art and part of the cruel, odious, treasonable, and abominable slaughter and murder, of the umwhile the Right High and Mighty Prince the King’s Grace, dearest spouse for the time to our Sovereign Lady the Queen’s Majesty.”73 He was then called as defender on the one side, and Matthew Earl of Lennox, and all others the Queen’s lieges, who wished to pursue in the matter, on the other. Bothwell appeared immediately at the bar, supported by the Earl of Morton, and two gentlemen who were to act as his advocates. But the Earl of Lennox, or other pursuers, though frequently called, did not appear. At length Robert Cunningham, one of Lennox’s servants, stepped forward, and produced a writing in the shape of a protest, which his master had authorized him to deliver. It stated, that the cause of the Earl’s absence was the shortness of time, and the want of friends and retainers to accompany him to the place of trial; and it therefore objected to the decision of any assize which might be held that day. In reply to this protest, the letters of the Earl of Lennox to the Queen, in which he desired that a short and summary process might be taken against the suspected persons, were produced and read; and it was maintained by the Earl of Bothwell’s
Anderson, vol. i. p. 50.
Goodall, vol. i. p. 346,
Chalmers, vol. i. p. 209. The above fact is no proof, as Chalmers alleges, that Murray was connected with the conspirators; but it shows, that whatever his own suspicions or belief were, he did not choose to discountenance Bothwell. Could Mary ever suppose that the
Anderson, vol. i. p. 52.
Robertson – Appendix to vol. i. No. XIX.
Anderson, vol. ii. p. 103.